My bottom jaw is notoriously difficult to numb, to the extent that they had to call in the leading dental anesthesiologist in the country to figure out how to numb me.

The trick he discovered was to do a mepivacaine nerve block, and then a septocaine infiltration around the tooth. Septocaine is also called articaine. I had occasionally had success with septocaine nerve blocks but not consistently, and septocaine nerve blocks are thought to be more dangerous because they are associated with a higher chance of permanent nerve damage should they accidentally hit the nerve.

They speculated that I was difficult to numb because either my nerves were not where they expected them to be, I had extra nerves, or I just metabolized the anesthesia different. They wanted me to get 3D imaging to determine the actual location of my nerves but I couldn't afford it.

Yes, the tooth is on my lower jaw. I have difficulty with getting any of my teeth numb, but my lower jaw is much worse too. Thank you for the information. I am still looking for a dentist that will help with this problem or at least listen to me. I am so glad that you found someone to help you.

If you live near a university with a dental school you might contact them and see if they can get you in touch with a dental anesthesiologist. Surprisingly, a lot of general practice dentists arent up on the various dental anesthesia or drilling techniques. At the dental school here there are a number of instructor dentists who oversee the students. They are usually busy running around but one day the clinic was dead and four of the instructors happened to just be sitting next to the chair I was in. Three left to go do something leaving one, an older man, sitting there. My student dentist was having a hard time completely numbing me (because she didnt have the stuff the dental anesthesiologist said to use and couldnt get it as the dispensary hsd closed). She called the dental instructor over and after running down the list of things she already tried, he crossed his arms and said "Well then, I just dont know what else to do." At this point I had a partially drilled tooth and was thinking "What do you mean you dont know what to do?!?!?" Thankfully o e of the other denists then came back over and after learning of the problem, said "Let me show you a different way to do this that sometimes works." And he sat down and managed to finish drilling my tooth without causing me pain.

I've come to learn that denistry can really be more of an art than a science sometime.....and 9 out of 10 dentists cant actually agree on anything.

Thank you Jenna! That is a good suggestion. I can relate to what happened to you with the dentist not being able to numb the tooth after he started drilling. Not a good situation to be in. So glad they were able to numb it for you. Thanks again.